Image: Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton
Artist Andres Serrano and collector Bob Rennie will meet for a public conversation at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick, on September 17, 2026. The event, titled ‘Artist & Collector in Conversation’, will focus on Serrano’s photographs ‘Piss Christ (Immersions)’, ‘Blood Cross (Bodily Fluids)’, and ‘Piss Pope, Part I and II (Immersions)’. The discussion is scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. in the gallery’s Harrison McCain Pavilion.
According to the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Serrano and Rennie will address the creation of the works, their continuing cultural impact, and the ways collectors, museums, and audiences contribute to the legacy of art. The institution describes the program as an opportunity to hear directly from both the artist and the collector about the relationship between art, controversy, and public dialogue.
The event’s featured works include ‘Piss Christ’, a photograph first made in 1987 and printed in 2007. The version identified by the gallery was vandalised in 2011. It is described as a cibachrome print face-mounted to Plexiglas and housed in the artist’s frame, measuring 65 7/8 by 45 1/8 inches when framed. The work is credited to Serrano and listed as courtesy of the artist and the Rennie Collection in Vancouver.
Serrano, born in New York in 1950, is presented by the gallery as one of the most recognized contemporary artists on the international art scene. His photographs have been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at Musée Maillol in Paris and Forum Groningen in 2024, as well as DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague and Fotografiska in Tallinn in 2023. His work is held in more than 70 public collections worldwide.
The institutions named among those collections include the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Vatican Contemporary Art Collection, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Vancouver Art Gallery. Serrano’s institutional presentations have also included the Whitney Biennial in New York, Barbican Art Gallery in London, Helsinki Art Museum, and Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid. The gallery’s biography states that he lives and works in New York, and that he was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France in 2017 and a National Academician in the United States in 2015.
Rennie founded the Rennie Collection, whose holdings encompass contemporary art by established and emerging artists from around the world. The collection’s stated approach is to acquire, preserve, and exhibit works while collaborating with arts institutions internationally. It supports artists working across media whose practices explore societal, political, and cultural issues, and shares works with audiences through institutional loans and collaborations.
The conversation is free and open to the public. The Beaverbrook Art Gallery is located at 703 Queen Street in Fredericton, on the traditional unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik and Mi’kmaq Peoples of New Brunswick.
